Tower

They fell in love in a tower, a secluded room shut away from the rest of the city. They met quickly, huddled in corners, wrapped themselves in coats and blankets, and retreated for days under scratchy childhood-hand-me-down blankets. Their skinny limbs twined together in knots as twin cigarettes glowed in the dark. He was older but still quite young and fearless. Nothing touched them in the tower: cats yowled in the alley below, drunk college boys shouted expletives at one another, whores made a living in the bushes a block away, but nothing touched them in the tower.

There was a radio, and its dial never inched away from the channel they had found together. A channel for war veterans, a channel for people who met quickly and married before he had to ship off, a channel with Frank and Dean and Fred and Nat. That channel took precedence in their early life together, it followed them to his grey sedan and stayed there. They proclaimed all other music meaningless. She wore a short skirt and tights in Winter's deepest freeze and wondered how he stayed warm, skinny as he was.

They would go on "dates". But these were rare (still are) and preferred to keep their company alone in the tower, the door locked and latched tight. They left most parties and organized events early, clamored back to the tower in hurried silence, and raced each other up the stairs.